He’s walking the dusty streets of Kabul, where there are no street signs, let alone house numbers, for hours. You either know your way around here or rely on enquiries. The postman Walid Nazir guides us through the life of a city that we know only from the news in connection with terror and bombings. But even Afghanistan has long known an everyday life slowly emerging from the modest dwellings where, after decades of war and destruction, you never know whether they are ruins or simply humble. Normality here means improvisation. Once you’ve seen the post office with its broken stove pipe and letters scattered in all corners of the room because there are not enough pigeon holes, you wonder how any letter coming out of this chaos ever reaches its addressee. But appearances are deceptive, because they will try anything to deliver the letters properly. The camera persistently follows Nazir with his great scar as he enquires his way from street to street, driven by something like an investigator’s ambition, past the little tables were scribes offer their services. It would be tempting to trust the peace, if it weren’t for the ubiquitous army posts with their bored soldiers dozing in the sun. Compared to them, Nazir looks like a messenger of trust.
– Cornelia Klauß